id
paragraphs in Gibbon's History. He ought either, with manly courage, to
have denied the moral reformation introduced by Christianity, or fairly
to have investigated all its motives; not to have confined himself to
an insidious and sarcastic description of the less pure and generous
elements of the Christian character as it appeared even at that early
time.--M.]

It is a very ancient reproach, suggested by the ignorance or the malice
of infidelity, that the Christians allured into their party the most
atrocious criminals, who, as soon as they were touched by a sense of
remorse, were easily persuaded to wash away, in the water of baptism,
the guilt of their past conduct, for which the temples of the gods
refused to grant them any expiation. But this reproach, when it is
cleared from misrepresentation, contributes as much to the honor as it
did to the increase of the church. [83] The friends of Christianity may
acknowledge without a blush, that many of the most eminent saints had
been before their baptism the most abandoned sinners. Those persons, who
in the world had followed, though in an imperfect manner, the dictates
of benevolence and propriety, derived such a calm satisfaction from the
opinion of their own rectitude, as rendered them much less susceptible
of the sudden emotions of shame, of grief, and of terror, which have
given birth to so many wonderful conversions. After the example of their
divine Master, the missionaries of the gospel disdained not the society
of men, and especially of women, oppressed by the consciousness, and
very often by the effects, of their vices. As they emerged from sin
and superstition to the glorious hope of immortality, they resolved to
devote themselves to a life, not only of virtue, but of penitence. The
desire of perfection became the ruling passion of their soul; and it is
well known, that while reason embraces a cold mediocrity, our passions
hurry us, with rapid violence, over the space which lies between the
most opposite extremes.

[Footnote 83: The imputations of Celsus and Julian, with the defence of
the fathers, are very fairly stated by Spanheim, Commentaire sur les
Cesars de Julian, p. 468.]

When the new converts had been enrolled in the number of the faithful,
and were admitted to the sacraments of the church, they found themselves
restrained from relapsing into their past disorders by another
consideration of a less spiritual, but of a very innocent and
respectab